Please help a complete novice

[chiefbean]

Hi all, hoping for a bit of guidance! I’m looking to get myself a gaming PC however after doing my own research I feel way out of depth on selecting the right build, I just don’t want to get the wrong build and regret it so I was hoping for some help.

It would primarily just be used for gaming (Call of Duty, GTAV, Battlefield etc) but also able to handle games at a later date such as Battlefield 6 when it’s released or other AAA title games.

I don’t currently have a monitor so ideally this would be included within the budget. Again I’m not clued up on this however it wouldn’t necessarily need to be able to handle 4K (I doubt that would be possible with my budget anyway).

Total budget ideally anywhere between £1300-£1500.

I appreciate any help given!

 

[Deleted member 17413]

What are your feelings on 27" 1440p monitors?
You can kind of go two ways with that budget.... a very good 1080p system (but its still 1080p) or squeeze a 1440p but it wont have as many bells and whistles and you'd probably go a bit cheap on the monitor choice to get it all in for £1500

 

[chiefbean]

Thank you for responding. To be honest I could go either way, yes the 1440p would be better however I wouldn’t want to risk overall performance due to this. When you mention it won’t have the bells and whistle, would this be a noticeable difference between the two systems?

Again, thank you for helping, I really do appreciate it!

 

[Deleted member 17413]

If you were going to go 1440p, and get a decent monitor, the monitor would be around the £250 to £300 mark, to squeeze that into your build you'd then end up sacrificing too much elsewhere to get it in for £1500.

You can pick up a good 1080p monitor for £150 to £200, and start off with an older GPU to try and build as decent a machine overall as you can, so when you upgrade to 1440p you upgrade GPU as well, or alternatively save up a couple more hundred to try and balance off the high prices atm/wait for prices to come down a little.

 

[Martinr36]

If you were going to go 1440p, and get a decent monitor, the monitor would be around the £250 to £300 mark, to squeeze that into your build you'd then end up sacrificing too much elsewhere to get it in for £1500.

You can pick up a good 1080p monitor for £150 to £200, and start off with an older GPU to try and build as decent a machine overall as you can, so when you upgrade to 1440p you upgrade GPU as well, or alternatively save up a couple more hundred to try and balance off the high prices atm/wait for prices to come down a little.

Personally I would say take the latter alternative, another £300 say could make lot of difference as it would give you £1500 for the rig & £300 for a monitor such as the Samsung Odyssey G5 27"

 

[Deleted member 17413]

Something along these lines, and then leaves just under £200 for a monitor
Storage is just a start point, and I would add a 1TB or 2TB M.2 for games as you grow it, GPU is older but will happily run a 144Hz 1080p monitor without any issue, and means you can put a little more into the rest of the build rather than trying for a 3060.

Can easily upgrade over time, case is very flexible and lots of space so liquid AIO's, more storage drive etc etc... whatever route you take, it will fit. Might also want to add a couple more fans to improve airflow as it only comes with 2 fans to start with, but i'd get decent/performance fans rather than buying cheap.

Case
CORSAIR 4000D AIRFLOW TEMPERED GLASS GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Six Core CPU (3.7GHz-4.6GHz/35MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING B550-PLUS (DDR4, USB 3.2, 6Gb/s) - ARGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
6GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1660 SUPER - HDMI, DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!
1st M.2 SSD Drive
500GB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 6900MB/R, 5000MB/W)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
CoolerMaster Hyper 212 (120mm) Fan CPU Cooler Black Edition
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card
WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2,400Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KK3-00002]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 12 to 14 working days
Price: £1,318.00 including VAT and Delivery
Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am4-gen3-pc/CsRrS0060n/

 

[chiefbean]

Something along these lines, and then leaves just under £200 for a monitor
Storage is just a start point, and I would add a 1TB or 2TB M.2 for games as you grow it, GPU is older but will happily run a 144Hz 1080p monitor without any issue, and means you can put a little more into the rest of the build rather than trying for a 3060.

Can easily upgrade over time, case is very flexible and lots of space so liquid AIO's, more storage drive etc etc... whatever route you take, it will fit. Might also want to add a couple more fans to improve airflow as it only comes with 2 fans to start with, but i'd get decent/performance fans rather than buying cheap.

Case
CORSAIR 4000D AIRFLOW TEMPERED GLASS GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Six Core CPU (3.7GHz-4.6GHz/35MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING B550-PLUS (DDR4, USB 3.2, 6Gb/s) - ARGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
6GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1660 SUPER - HDMI, DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!
1st M.2 SSD Drive
500GB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 6900MB/R, 5000MB/W)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
CoolerMaster Hyper 212 (120mm) Fan CPU Cooler Black Edition
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card
WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2,400Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KK3-00002]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 12 to 14 working days
Price: £1,318.00 including VAT and Delivery
Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/amd-am4-gen3-pc/CsRrS0060n/

Wow thank you so much for this, it’s made everything a lot less daunting for me! I feel that 1080p would be ideal for now and I can always upgrade in the future if needed. You’ve mentioned the GPU is a bit older, would a newer model make much of a difference or would it not be necessary?

 

[Deleted member 17413]

You'd get stuff like raytracing with newer models, but 1440p is pretty much the standard these days, not 1080p

 

[adskankster]

I'm not really experienced enough to contribute to this, but you may find this thread useful.

Gaming PC - 1440p vs graphics card availability

Hi All, I'm looking to get a new gaming PC & monitor with a combined budget of about £1600 (can't go much above that really). I have some cheap keyboards/mice I can use for a stop-gap, and I have a wired port, to don't need wifi. Bluetooth is a nice to have, but not a necessity. I'm coming...

www.pcspecialist.co.uk

My budget was a bit higher than yours (£1500 - £1600ish), but not so much as to make the choices completely irrelevant. It probably won't directly affect your choice, but it's worth a look, if you haven't seen it already.

Makes me wonder, if we should all be putting the budget in the subject line. It'll help others find similar budgets when browsing/scanning the forum.